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It was plain that Japan was defeated, but it seemed much less obvious what would follow. “Most of us knew that Stalin906 was doing this for his own reasons,” said Chinese Nationalist captain Luo Dingwen. “We had no reason to love or trust the Russians.” Xu Guiming was a Chinese clerk at the Japanese Propaganda Bureau in the town of Aihni, on the Manchurian side of the Amur River, now in the Soviet 2nd Far Eastern Front’s sector. He lived a few hundred yards from the office building, in a courtyard occupied by three families. There was his own, and that of Zeng, another clerk in the Propaganda Bureau. The third family was that of their landlord, a rich Muslim named Mr. Chen who owned ten cows and was customarily so deep in an opium-induced stupor that events of war and peace passed him by. On the evening of 9 August, a telephone rang in the courtyard. It was the Propaganda Bureau. All its employees were to report to the office immediately, to receive vital news.

Xu reached the squat three-storey building to find Japanese scurrying hither and thither with piles of documents, which they were hurling onto a huge bonfire. Inside, the staff assembled. The director announced that he had received information that Russian forces had crossed the border into Manchuria. Everyone must leave the town by next afternoon. The Japanese staff bowed their heads in abject misery. Xu felt no emotion, for nothing about his employers commanded his sympathy. They all queued to receive three months’ salary apiece, then returned home as their workplace was put to the torch.

In the courtyard, Xu found his neighbour Zeng exploiting his ownership of four ponies to flee with his wife, children and what little they could carry. Xu discussed the situation with his own family, which included a brother and assorted children. They decided to seek shelter nearby. By the time they had taken themselves into the fields, darkness had fallen. Exhausted, they huddled together into a slumber which lasted well past dawn. Daylight revealed that while about half Aihni’s 20,000 population had fled further afield, many inhabitants like themselves had chosen to remain, watching events which soon unfolded. A procession of Soviet gunboats appeared, steaming steadily downriver. They opened fire, raking the shoreline and pouring shells into the nearby railway station. To and fro the guns ranged, killing an old woman and a cow not far from Xu. Then, as Russian marines began to storm ashore, the head of the local labour union advanced to meet them. “Welcome to the north-east,” said this rather brave Chinese. He told the Russians that all the Japanese had gone, and that there were no weapons in the town. Some 4,000 Japanese troops held out nearby, however, surrendering only on 20 August.

THE DAYS and weeks that followed the Russian occupation were a brutal shock to the “liberated” people of Aihni. They witnessed their share of the orgy of rape and destruction which overtook Manchuria. On 13 August, Xu Guiming saw two Russian soldiers accost in the street a local girl named Zhang—half-Russian, half-Chinese, like many people of the region. “We reckon you owe us one,” they said, throwing her to the ground. One man held her down while the other bestrode her, and a ghastly little drama took place. Zhang fought fiercely, throwing aside her rapist. This caused the other man to unsling his gun and shoot her. His careless bullets also killed his comrade, however. The occupants of a passing Russian vehicle, seeing what happened, themselves unleashed a burst of fire which killed the murderer. Three corpses were left unheeded in the street.

Xu did not himself witness another local incident which became notorious. A Russian burst into the home of a local policeman, Mr. Su, who was sitting with a man friend and his twenty-year-old wife, newly delivered of a baby. The Russian brusquely ordered the men out, and raped the girl. When he emerged, the outraged Chinese seized and bound him, then thrust him down their well. This incident rendered the avenging Chinese briefly famous,